Afghan President Fires a Powerful Governor From Post He Held 13 Years

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan fired the powerful governor of Balkh Province on Monday, ousting an official who had held sway over a northern economic powerhouse for 13 years and who had amassed great wealth even as he fended off previous attempts to unseat him.

The removal of the governor, Atta Muhammad Noor, raised fears of additional political pressure on Mr. Ghani and of further fraying of the coalition government in Kabul. The president had already come under fire from rivals and former allies alike for his government’s inability to hold long-delayed elections.

Mr. Noor is also one of the leaders of the Jamiat-i-Islami political party, which holds half the seats in the coalition government. The party, in a statement, condemned Mr. Ghani’s decision as “rushed, irresponsible, and against stability and security of Afghanistan.”

The statement said the party would respond further after its leader and foreign minister, Salahuddin Rabbani, returned from an official trip to Europe, which he was cutting short to deal with the crisis at home.

In private, many members of the already fractious Jamiat said the party could opt out of the government entirely, but doing so could be complicated if all of its members did not agree to leave.

After weeks of rumors about Mr. Noor’s fate, a statement issued early Monday by the president’s office said that Mr. Ghani had “accepted the resignation” of Mr. Noor. The statement said that Muhammad Daud, a former Balkh official and Jamiat member who had served in military and civilian roles and who had lived in Europe for years, would take over as the provincial governor.

At the same time, Mr. Noor’s aides denied that he had resigned. They said that the president had cunningly used an undated resignation Mr. Noor had submitted in a trust-building gesture as part of a broader deal to appoint a long list of party officials to senior administration posts. That deal, despite months of negotiations between the president and Mr. Noor, fell apart.

Mr. Noor, 54, is part of a generation of former warlords who saw their regional fortunes fluctuate over the past decade, some of them being sidelined or shifted to jobs in Kabul as a way to distance them from their power bases. He managed to maintain his firm grip in Balkh through a combination of patronage, delivering infrastructure projects, and improving security while neighboring areas grew increasingly violent as the Taliban made inroads. Even Western allies turned a blind eye to a history of human rights accusations against Mr. Noor because he was perceived as having a firm grip.

Shujahuddin Shuja, a member of the Balkh provincial council, said residents were now concerned that the new governor would not have the capacity to provide security in a difficult environment.

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“Governor Noor had brought some of the groups under control — the thieves, the irresponsible militias,” Mr. Shuja said. “He had understandings with them, and they would not stand against him.”

Mr. Ghani had long made clear his dislike for Mr. Noor, often siding with his strong opponents. During the presidential campaign of 2014, Mr. Ghani repeatedly singled out Mr. Noor as an example of corrupt strongmen who needed to be reined in by the central government.

But the election went into a deadlock after large-scale fraud. Mr. Ghani came to lead a coalition alongside his rival Abdullah Abdullah, whom Mr. Noor had backed, and who now has the title chief executive, making half of all appointments.

Mr. Ghani’s bitter relationship with his coalition partner stagnated to the point of Mr. Abdullah calling the president unfit to rule. Then Mr. Ghani started direct negotiations with Mr. Noor in the hopes of marginalizing Mr. Abdullah.

The negotiations broke down after months, further dividing a Jamiat party already struggling for unity. Mr. Abdullah remains firmly in the government, and has even clashed with Mr. Noor in recent months. Aides to Mr. Abdullah said he agreed with the president’s decision to remove Mr. Noor, although he questioned its timing. And there remains the question of whether Jamiat representatives in the government would answer to party leaders like Mr. Noor, or to Mr. Abdullah, who leads the bloc in the government.

Mr. Ghani’s aides say that Mr. Noor had to go because he had continued to disrespect the central government. They point to the party’s fractures and assert that much of his power is in appearance only, and thus his removal would not stir much trouble.

There were reports this year that the central government had scrutinized, or even frozen, some of Mr. Noor’s financial assets. Last month, as Mr. Noor was trying to attend a rally of opposition figures in southern Afghanistan, the central government was reported to have grounded his plane, refusing him permission to fly.

Separately, violence in Afghanistan went unabated on Monday.

In Kabul, militants seized a building under construction near a training academy for the country’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security. They fired into the academy and for more than five hours fought Afghan special forces who had arrived to try to end the siege. The Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said that all three militants had been killed and two members of the security forces wounded.

In the southern province of Helmand, a car bomb targeted a convoy of Afghan police officers that had stopped at a gas station in the city of Lashkar Gah, according to Abdul Salam Afghan, a spokesman for the provincial police. Mr. Afghan said two people had been killed in the powerful blast and 29 wounded.